C2 Classic Cuisine

Before heading to the mall last Saturday for an afternoon date, I thought of searching online first for a different restaurant, deviating from all our pizza and burger madness. It's always a daunting task to find a restaurant in the metro where our cravings will be satisfied at an affordable price.

After much time spent on Google, I decided to give C2 Classic Cuisine a try. After all, I miss eating Filipino dishes. I am fed up with eating fastfood everyday!

According to their official Facebook page, "C2 Classic Cuisine is a refreshing restaurant that offers the best redefined Filipino classics". I was really counting a lot on redefined. Most of the descriptions that I read online from other blogs consists of the words Filipino, fusion and modern. The last restaurant I went to that had that had the same theme was Mesa (which I really, really liked) and I haven't been anywhere near a Filipino fusion themed resto since.

We arrived at C2 Classic Cuisine SM Megamall on a Saturday noon. The place was quite packed (which is always a good sign, I think) but was lucky enough to find seats as soon as we got there.

We were handed the menu as soon as we got settled. We were so excited to eat because everything looked really delicious!

Here's our picks:

1. Adobo Rice Bagoong Fried Rice (PhP 105)

I was pretty sure that we ordered Adobo Rice because of the viand that we ordered along with this (refer to number 2). I thought at first it was Adobo flavored, but I was wrong. Adobo Rice was supposed to be served with shredded Adobo flakes. No worries though. What I like about their rice serving is that one order is equivalent to 2 bowls of rice. So we opted for a combination of one Adobo Rice Bagoong Rice and one plain rice. (Oh, the sodium consumption I had this day...)

2. Binagoongang Lechon Kawali (PhP 325)

We were both quite surprised when this was served and the first thing he said was, "Parang ang daming bagoong?" It was a question, too, inside my head that time. I thought, maybe it tastes good or maybe we can just remove the excess shrimp paste. But there was just too much shrimp paste. Good thing there was an eggplant relish on the side that was sour, so it kind of contrasts the saltiness of the lechon kawali. The pork was cooked perfectly but the amount of shrimp paste kind of ruined the dish for me.

3. Pinakbet at Bagnet (PhP 275)

I was super excited to try this. I was craving for vegetables and I was happy to learn that they have Pinakbet with my ever favorite Ilocano pork dish, Bagnet. The crunch of the pork's still ringing in my ears. The dish was great, though I know very well not to expect that much of Bagnet since this was under the Vegetables list in their menu. Hahaha. It was a good dish -- nothing out of the ordinary, but still able to satisfy my yearning for this classic vegetable dish.

4. Turon ala Mode (PhP 155)

Okay. So another little disappointment I had was that the Pastillas Panna Cotta that I originally ordered was out of stock that day. Sometimes, I don't understant how could restaurants let that happen. Saturdays are supposed to be busy days for them so they have to be fully stocked with everything in their menu, right? But what do I know. Haha. So upon learning that, I changed my order to this. A dessert was required after our meal because we just had too much salty food.

I really loved this! The butterscotch and langka sauce was just perfect. The Turon had a perfect crunch to it, banana was quite on the mushy side and was surprised with the ube (yam) filling! Just the way I like it! I thought it was a great way to end our lunch.

So there. Sometimes I wonder if I just make poor choices in the food we order. But hey, restaurants are supposed to serve great dishes, right? Food was definitely not cheap and most of it fell short of our expectations. Nonetheless, I would still give C2 another try and hopefully next time, the Pastillas Panna Cotta's available.